Home
What happens when home doesn’t feel like home anymore?
I’m going to grab a coffee now, then jump on I-95 and head north. I’m heading home and ruminating on what that means. The most beautiful, poetic, and amorphous definition, the one that resonates with the most people, is “home is where the heart is.” That sounds good and it actually makes sense, just so long as we don’t get too far into the meaning of “where the heart is.” See, “the heart” is one of those topics that begins to wilt as soon as you try to explain it. Which is why we have poetry. It also raises the question of whether you can live in one place and your heart can reside in another place. Can your sense of home shift under your feet?
You could make an argument that home is where all your stuff is. Home is where all the junk lives. Home is where you have your driver’s license and your library card, and it’s where you vote. Home is where your roots are, and not your old roots, but the things that root you to life right now. As for the old roots, I discovered that Thomas Wolfe was correct - you truly cannot go home again. When I went back to the block where I grew up in Yonkers, it was alien and all of my old neighbors were long gone.
That may get to the heart of it. Home may be where the people are. When I was away from New York for a month, on a cross country trip many years ago, I realized that it wasn’t the city I missed. It was the New Yorkers - the people - my family, friends and neighbors. The familiar strangers, too.
I just turned to Santo in his dog booster seat behind me, before we started north from tropical Florida to frigid New York. I said, “We’re going home.” I wonder if he sees it that way. It could be that home is wherever the two of us are together. Home is with the pack.
That was true with Elko, my last dog. As long as we were together, we were both fine. But I also remember that last trip I took with him, the trip when I learned he was sick, and I was soon to find out that he had lung cancer. He died within a week of returning home.
That last mad dash across the country was not easy or fun. He was in the back seat and I knew he felt bad. The vets in Portland, Oregon had said he was okay. But they had also said, “See a vet when you get home.”
Those words: “When you get home.” So I hauled ass and drove non-stop for three days, stopping to sleep for a short night in Nebraska and one in Ohio. I wanted to get him home.
There’s that word again. Anyway, we got in on the third day. We pulled into the parking spot in the garage of my building. And when we got out of the car, I put him on his leash and he ran. He ran as hard as he could run up that driveway. We had been away for a few weeks, but he wanted to get out there to his streets, the places that he had marked, the places that he knew, and maybe the places that he loved.
The places he marked and the places he knew. Maybe home is where our history lies. But, what if we don’t live with our history? And what does that mean to say, “I live here.” Does it mean that’s where I stay most of the time? I guess you could call that home. You could also make an argument that, for some people, home is on the road. That’s a fallacy, though, because if you’re on the road, you eventually need to come back. Come back to where? I need more coffee.
We talk about “the comforts of home,” but the word “comfortable” is fuzzy. It’s not accurate to say that home is where you are most comfortable. When we got back from that trip and Elko ran up the driveway with his ears pinned back, it felt like desperation. I don’t think it was joy. I don’t know what it was. But he knew where he was. He knew where he was. He was back where he felt comfortable, even though he was sick.
Santo and I got an early start today, not because I planned it that way, but when I’m heading home, that’s usually the way it is. I open my eyes and think, “No reason to linger.” So, the same force of gravity that often makes it difficult to leave town is what pulls me back in. Maybe it’s not the same force, but I think it is. And there is always the moment when I come over that hill on Interstate 78 and all of Manhattan rises up before me. Home.
What happens when home doesn’t feel like home anymore, when you want to scream at all the tourists to “go home”? What happens then? That could be where I’m at now and possibly where I have been for a long time. My parents are gone. My friends are still here, but I have fewer ties to this place than ever before. Gentrification and over-development have left me feeling like a stranger in my own town.
I still have my apartment and my stuff, and most of the close friends I do have are here. Santo patrols the same streets that Elko did and seems to mark the same corners, curbs, trees and traffic cones. We walk around and say hello to people. I sit on benches in the little park by the statue of the Doughboy from World War I. Santo has dog friends that he clearly loves to run into. I have people that I love to run into.
On this past trip, I discovered something important. It was his first time on the road since I got him and I had been worried about how he would do. Before I left, I tossed some of his toys in the bag. When we got to our first motel, before I did anything else, I pulled out the squeaky ball and we played catch.
It was a familiar thing that we had been doing for months and it seemed to ground him. He relaxed and was not nervous about the strange motel or the equally strange smells outside. I realized, just possibly, that home is where the squeaky ball is. We got home and I parked the car. Before we unloaded anything, I hopped out with Santo and he clearly knew – after six weeks on the road – where we were. He ran up the driveway as fast as Elko had three and a half years earlier, but he was simply excited beyond belief.
We walked around the whole neighborhood and he raised his leg dozens of times, way past the point where he was able to mark anything. He seemed happy. After we settled in, he spent the next three days sleeping hard on his favorite end of the couch. He was clearly happy to be home. I am too.
I am not homeless. I am not “houseless” either. I have the luxury of a roof over my head. The thing I am trying to figure out is metaphysical more than physical. It’s heart and soul over mind. And I don’t know how to get any peace over it.
I suspect I have to just show up and live each day, listen to any tiny voices I may hear and try to have some faith that they will lead me home.
All photos by Paul Vlachos.
This piece appeared in EXIT CULTURE: WORDS AND PHOTOS FROM THE OPEN ROAD. You can purchase the book on Amazon HERE.
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It's amazing how many places one can live and never really feel like they fit in. Oh, the furniture fits and the years pass with neighbors, workmates, and maybe a coffee buddy, but fitting in, knowing and living the historical culture, understanding how the puzzle covers the table, they still feel like that piece that fell on the floor, leaving a big hole in the puzzle. Interesting questions, Paul.
Lots to think about. I'm an Army brat so I've never really had a specific house or a city or town that I call home. When people ask me where I'm from I say Alabama because that's where I was born, but my home town on FaceBook is Columbus, GA because that's where I went to high school. My adopted home town is definitely Grand Junction, Colorado because that's where I decided to move in 1987 at an important time when I was in my 20's. I've spent a lot of time on the road, too, and that's where I seem to be happiest these days. My wife and I put our house up for sale in March and have been living in our new fifth wheel since then, but we need to stay pretty close as long as the house is for sale. Even though we're planning on RV'ing full time, we still plan to buy a place to use as a home base whenever we figure out where that is. Looking to the future, there is the reality of aging as well as the possibility that we might want or need to go back to work. And there are always family considerations for both our older and younger relatives. Well, these details are mostly just an outline and don't really get to the heart of the matter. I'll enjoy pondering these questions and might even try to write something down. Thank you as always for such great writing!